Streams of Babel (22 page)

"Cora, what are you doing? Do you want food?"

"Thanks, I'm not hungry just yet," I stammered.

"So then ... go lie down. Take a load off."

I felt awkward doing that with all these people here, but I pushed myself off the refrigerator, realizing he was probably giving me an excuse to get away from Jon Dempsey. So, I faked
interest in the television cartoons, pretending not to be hypnotized by the conversation going on between Rain and Adrian Moran.

"So, where's Danny? Did you hear we broke up on Monday?" she asked.

"Yep, heard all about it. Hall says you're, um..." Moran trailed off with a grin.

Rain grabbed his arm. "Tell me what he said!"

"I don't get in the middle of this shit. Let go of me. Get your typhoid off of me."

"Tell me!" She put her hands behind her back as Scott came past her. "Danny said I was bossing him around?"

"He says you were trying to grope him, ya know? Cop a feel—"

"You pig!" She forgot and slapped him on the arm. Moran couldn't stop laughing, and I found myself trying not to smile. "He was trying to get in my car, and I know he had at least two joints on him! He doesn't remember who my father is. I was trying to search him before I would let him in my—"

"Yeah, right." Moran snorted, and I laughed silently.

I thought it was silent, but they both looked at me.

"Cora, tell this man I'm not domineering just because I have certain matters of principle."

Moran stared, waiting for my input. Fortunately, Scott stepped in between us, handing me a bottle of water.

"Drink this. Don't drink from the tap, okay?"

I thanked him, wondering again about his sanity. Had he forgotten already that I'd read the yellow notice, too? But Adrian was back to arguing it out with Rain, and I didn't have to think up something clever.

Soon my floor and couch were covered with people eating food off paper plates and talking to each other. I took a piece of chicken and some salad, but I only picked at it. Owen didn't eat more than a few bites, but he smiled a couple of times. I felt like a spectator in an audience, but like I could become the stage at any moment.

It wasn't until most of the plates were empty that the glances my way increased, and I sensed some common question behind their eyes. Finally Jon Dempsey, in his go-lucky way, put it out in the air.

"So, Cora ... where's all your relatives?"

I had totally forgotten about the story I'd shared with Scott of having a grandmother in California: "I ... have a father, but he lives overseas. His flight arrives tomorrow," I added before realizing the horrible spot I'd put myself in. If Scott intended to keep his brother and Rain here like he had implied, they would see that lie unfold. Scott was staring. I put my head down, praying he wouldn't say anything. He didn't, but Dempsey made it worse.

"So, like, where's your girlfriends? Are they coming over?"

"Dude, you just want more fodder for your collection of shrunken girl heads," Bob Dobbins interrupted him, and turned to me. "Don't answer that, Cora. This is not the time, Dempsey. That was way tasteless."

I pretended to giggle with them, and then made like I had to go to the bathroom. I stayed until my heart quit slamming and I felt certain the conversation had moved to something different. When I came out, Scott was leaning against the hallway wall, and before I could say anything, he pulled me back into the bathroom and shut the door behind us.

He must have noticed me blushing, because he said, "So long
as you don't actually believe yourself about dads and grandmas, I'll let it go for now. We've got more immediate problems."

My eyes floated to his.

"Cora, did your mother drink tap water? I mean ... as a habit?"

I spoke quickly to get that last subject out of the air. "A side effect of morphine is chronic thirst. She probably drank ... a quart every night."

He shut his eyes with a sigh. "There are so many USIC people in Alan Steckerman's house right now, they're falling out the front door."

I halfway got his implication but muttered in confusion. "But ... I thought Mr. Steckerman said ... I thought the water towers had passed all the tests."

"They did," he said. "But we've got two deaths on our street under very strange circumstances and a notice from the Utilities Department that the four streets surrounding us shouldn't drink the water. Plus, Mr. Steckerman's holding a USIC convention in his house. Am I supposed to think these aren't related?"

I couldn't think. "How would they be related?"

"There could be something in our tap water. Not the whole schmear, not the water tower. Just one of the veins that breaks off from the water tower."

My hand floated to my throat. "How would somebody do that? Poison just a
part
of the water?"

"There are probably ways. But I went to the Steckermans' to pick up clothes for Rain, and if those agents had acted any frostier, I'd have had to smack them."

"But ... how?" I repeated. "And what on earth would a terrorist want with Trinity Falls?"

"I don't have the foggiest. This would be a goddamn stupid place to terrorize. We all imagine that terrorists live in places like ... the Sudan, or somewhere exotic. And they probably have arms that reach that far. The world is shrinking, you know?"

I remembered Aleese's strange journal entry about us all being connected, like beads on a string. "I do know."

"Here's the only theory I can put together, on the spot. I could be way wrong, but here goes: If, say, members of some terror cell were working or staying around here, and if they were aware of where the new regional director of USIC lived, they might think it was funny to try a few of their little experiments out on his street."

A flash of resentment toward Mr. Steckerman shot through me, but he'd been so kind at Aleese's service, so I forced it away. The theory was beyond believing, though I didn't want to hurt Scott's feelings.

I repeated, "How?" for lack of something better.

He laughed absently. "I'm a paramedic. Ask me something medical. The USIC agents at the Steckermans' were so clammed up, I doubt they'd have told me the time if I'd asked. They don't want to cause a panic, I guess, though I doubt they're sure about anything right now. It's too soon. I'm willing to let USIC figure out how a terror cell can screw up my universe. I just want to know what's in the water. I think it's gotta be the water, Cora. Especially now that I've heard your mother drank it by the gallon, too."

"And so did I." I felt the room sway, not sure if it was some poison or imagination. I had never liked soda. Caffeine and sugar left me jangled. I'd been a water girl since I gave up Juicy Juice.

He just slumped against the wall. "And so did my brother, and so did Rain, and so did..." He stopped, and I hoped he wasn't about to name himself. "My imagination is running wild, of course, but I should have reminded Mr. Steckerman about some of my memos from the CDC—which state that certain waterborne viruses can
become
airborne once they're ingested into the human system. I'm trying to be as cautious as I can without being a lunatic."

His insistence that everyone wash and not touch us made more sense—though sending Owen's friends out of the house might have seemed overboard. I could understand his judgment calls suddenly, and once again I got the impression he did better while keeping his mind working.

His eyes were lit with a fire, though his speech was firm. "I'm certain USIC has big reasons to suspect the water. That notice from the Utilities Department is too coincidental, no matter what they 'appear' to be doing at the end of our street. It's all a ruse—having trucks and lights set up to make it look good. And if the water contained seepage from some local root rot, Alan Steckerman would be taking care of his own kid instead of leaving it to me."

I had to say the whole thing out loud. "You think someone ... somehow ... poisoned the water on just a few streets. In Trinity Falls, New Jersey. Of all places on the globe."

He finally said, "Let me tell you something, and this is embarrassing."

"Okay," I said.

"I was at work the morning of September 11. Some guy came in and told me the Trade Center fell, and do you know what? I didn't know what the Trade Center was! I live less than
three hours from there, but didn't know. Call me a piss-poor tourist, but it's just not on the top of my list-to-pay-attention-to places because lots of business is done there. I'd visited Chicago once with my mom, and I had it confused with the Merchandise Mart. I was imagining this boxy-looking place, maybe fifteen stories high, and the roof had collapsed or something. I said something dumb like 'Tough break, but shit happens.'"

I smiled sympathetically.

"Some guys had some wild idea that we'd all be sitting around slicing our jugulars with our credit cards if the stock market closed. And if by chance this thing happened here? They probably thought they could whack a bunch of rich, productive Trinity people along with the local USIC guru, and that would be some noble accomplishment. They forget about
bottled
water. I bet your family and mine are the only ones on the street without bottled water in our budgets, Cora. So, they'd end up poisoning a couple of single moms, a few kids—and the rich, successful Americans they were trying to get were off drinking bottled water. If that's what happened, how badly would it suck?"

I couldn't conceive of his thinking right then; I just didn't want him to look so fiery-eyed, so haunted. "Don't worry yourself so much ... it could be something else entirely," I said.

"I almost hope it is some Al Qaeda shit-for-brains. I just need to know. Fast. Whatever it is, it's closing in on us."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He picked up my hand, laid the back of it on his face for a moment, then dropped it again. He was burning up.

"A recent development of maybe the past half hour," he said. "Don't tell my brother."

TYLER PING
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2002
12:35
P.M.

IN THE CAFETERIA fifth period, I watched this new kid ahead of me in the garbage line. He looked pretty typical. Dark, foreign, confused. We get new kids a lot in a school this size that's one tunnel away from Manhattan. Migrating families generally come whenever they can get entrance visas. They can't usually plan around things like "the school year starts in September."

I came from South Korea in late November of sixth grade, and it took me a couple of months to realize that "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" wasn't the national anthem. But you'd think this particular new kid had never been in school before. For one thing, he was trying to special order his public school lunch.

"So ... excuse me. Um ... Do you have please a
baggle
?" He was smiling politely, which meant he was probably from India.
It's hard to tell the difference between certain types of new arrivals, but the Hindus have a reputation as being a pleasant lot.

"Baggle?" the lady server with the fat arms asked him. "You mean a Bag
gie
? You want a sandwich Baggie?"

"No ... no sandwich ... um.." He was smiling again.

"This isn't ESL class," somebody grumbled from behind me.

"Shahzad! No, no." Some girl in front of him grabbed his arm. Inas Hamdani. Nice enough girl. Honors geek like me, who told our illustrious jocks and beauty queens nicely to go kiss off when they wanted to copy her math and science homework. "That's a breakfast food! You don't ask for a bagel in the lunch line!"

"He wants a
bagel
? I can get him a bagel."

Miss Fat Arms looked troubled but waddled off to get him his bagel. The other server had already disappeared back there for something else.

"Sorry, Tyler! Sorry, guys." Inas smiled at whoever was behind me. What could you say? Inas Hamdani blushes in such beautiful Pakistani maroon. "My cousin Shahzad is obsessed with food right now."

Whatever that meant. And okay, so the new guy is Pakistani. Even I can get things wrong.

I could hear the jocks going off behind me in the garbage line. "Ping, is that you holding up the works?...It's gotta be Ping ... asshole ... druggie ... geek ... asshole..."

I turned to look, and I saw a smoldering mound of whiteness. Dark - haired, blond - haired, red - haired whiteness. I was annoyed at Inas Hamdani's cousin, but suddenly he was slightly closer to me in life experiences than they were. Like me, he probably was thrown into this civilization overnight via JFK Airport.

I singled out Todd Coffey, because I'd heard he got benched for Saturday's wrestling match over nailing my face last week. He wouldn't risk getting benched again, whereupon the White Mound of Girls couldn't gaze at his bulging physique.

I flipped him the bird. "Quit thinking about sucking on this, Coffey."

"Oh my god" reverberated from the White Mound, and possibly from Inas, but in another language.

I could have made it worse. I could have threatened to fuck with Coffey's cell phone bill or something. I'm slightly better than your basic hacker, such that I could have Coffey's cell bill arrive with a twenty-six-thousand-dollar balance due if I felt like it. But the point wasn't to scare him shitless. I don't exactly like scaring people shitless. I like being annoying.

"I'll do him this time ... hold back and have patience, Coffey."

It came from Bruno Fetalius.
Brutus Fetal Positionus.
Miss Fat Arms returned, handing this Shahzad guy a sesame bagel.

"Oh! Bagels?" I cast a long glance back at the White Mound. "I would like a bagel, too! My mother never gives me breakfast!"

"So, why don't you make your own breakfast!" Miss Fat Arms did a one-eighty and waddled back into the vast, greasy unknown. The White Mound grew volcanic. I didn't look this time—just smiled pleasantly to myself.

Make my own breakfast.
Like, maybe I had made my own breakfast, lunch,
and
dinner since we landed at JFK five years ago. This White Mound of Grunts had something resembling American sandwich-making, dinner-producing mothers. I
have Dr. Germ, or the North Korean version of her. Dr. Germ, in case you're ill-read, is the woman who designed chemical weapons for Iraq.